Sharpe's Eagle (30 page)

The silence was over. From now Sharpe would tell the story of the battle by the sounds and he
listened as the iron shot from seventy or eighty French guns screamed and thundered in the air.
He could hear the crash of the guns, imagined them throwing their massive weights back onto the
trails, bucking in the air and slamming back onto the wheels as the rammer was dipped in water
and the men prepared the next shot. Behind was a different noise, the muted sound of the
roundshot gouging the Medellin, the thud of iron on earth. He turned back to Knowles. "This is my
unlucky day."

Knowles turned a worried face on him. The Captain was supposed to be `lucky'. Sharpe and the
company depended on the superstition. "Why, sir?"

Sharpe grinned. "They're firing to our left." He was shouting over the sound of the massed
cannons. "They'll attack there. I thought I might be the proud owner of a watch otherwise!" He
slapped a relieved Knowles on the shoulder and pointed across the stream. "Expect them in about
twenty minutes, over to the left a bit. I'll be back!"

He walked down the line of men, checking flints, making the old jokes and looking for Harper.
He felt desperately tired, not just the tiredness of disturbed and little sleep, but the
weariness of problems that seemed to have no end. Berry's death was like a half forgotten dream
and solved nothing except half a promise, and he had little idea how to solve the other half or
the promise about the Eagle. The promises were like barriers he had erected in his own life, and
honour demanded that they be overcome but his sense told him the task was impossible. He waved at
Harper, and as the Sergeant walked towards him the noise of the battle changed. There was a
whining quality to the roar of the shot overhead, and Harper looked up into the mist.

"Shells?"

Sharpe nodded as the first one exploded on the Medel-lin. The sound rose in intensity, the
crash of the shells echoing the thunder of the guns, and added to the din was the sharper sound
of the long British six-pounders firing back. Harper jerked a thumb at the unseen Medellin.
"That's a rare hammering, sir."

Sharpe listened. "The bands are still playing."

"I'd rather be down here."

Distantly, through the incessant crashes that merged into one long rumble, Sharpe could hear
the sound of Regimental bands. As long as the bandsmen were playing then the British Battalions
were not suffering overmuch from the French bombardment. If Wellesley had not pulled the British
line behind the crest the French gunners would be slaughtering the Battalions file by file and
the bandsmen would be doing their other job of picking up the wounded and taking them to the
rear. Sharpe knew Harper, like himself, was thinking of the promise to Lennox, of the Eagle. He
stared across the stream at the empty grass, listened to the cannonade as though it were someone
else's battle, and turned to the Sergeant.

"There will be other days, you know. Other battles."

Harper smiled slowly, crouched, and flicked a pebble into the clear water. "We'll see what
happens, sir." He stayed still, listening, then pointed ahead. "Hear that?"

It was the noise Sharpe had been waiting for, faint but unmistakable, the sound he had not
heard since Vimeiro, the sound of the French attack. The enemy columns were not in sight, would
not be visible for minutes, but through the mist he could hear the serried drummers beating the
hypnotic rhythm of the charge. Boom-boom, boom-boom, boomaboom, boomaboom, boom-boom. On and on
it would go until the attack was won or lost, the drummer boys thrashing the skins despite the
volleys, the endless rhythm that had carried the French to victory after victory. There was a
relentless menace about the drumbeats, each repeated phrase brought the French nearer by ten
paces, on and on, on and on.

Sharpe smiled at Harper. "Look after the boy. Is he all right?"

"Denny, sir? Tripped over his sword three times but otherwise he's fine." Harper laughed.
"Look after yourself, sir."

Sharpe walked back up the stream, the drumbeats nearer, the skirmish line peering
apprehensively into the empty mist. Their job was about to begin. The French guns had failed to
break the British Battalions and in front of the drums, spread in a vast cloud, the Voltigeurs
were coming. Their aim was to get as close to the British Battalions as they could and snipe at
the line with their muskets, to thin the ranks, weaken the line, so that when the drummed column
arrived the British would be rotten and give way. Sharpe's skirmishers with the other Light
Companies had to stop the Voltigeurs and their private battle, fought in the mist, was about to
begin. He found Knowles standing by the stream.

"See anything?"

"No, sir."

The drumming was louder, competing with the crash of the shells, and at the end of each
drummed phrase Sharpe could hear a new sound as the drummers paused to let thousands of voices
chant `Vive L'Empereur'. It was the victory noise that had terrified the armies of Europe, the
sound of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, the voices and drums of French victory. Then, upstream
and out of sight, the Light troops met and Sharpe heard the first crackle of musketry: not the
rolling volleys of massed ranks but the spaced, deliberate cracks of aimed shots. Knowles looked
at Sharpe with raised eyebrows, the Rifleman shook his head. "That's only one column. There'll be
at least another one, probably two, and nearer. Wait."

And there they were, dim figures running in the mist, dozens of men in blue jackets with red
epaulettes who angled across their front. The men raised their muskets.

"Hold your fire!" Sharpe pushed a musket down. The Voltigeurs ran into the fire of the 66th
and the Royal Americans, they were a hundred paces upstream and Sharpe waited to see if the
French skirmish line would reach the South Essex. "Wait!"

He watched the first Frenchmen crumple on the turf, others knelt and took careful aim but it
was not his fight. He guessed the French attack, aimed at the Medellin, was going to pass by the
South Essex but he was glad enough to let his raw troops see real skirmishing before they had to
do it themselves. The French, like the British, fought in pairs. Each man had to protect his
partner, firing in turn and calling out warnings, constantly watching the enemy to see if the
guns were aimed at him or his partner. Sharpe could hear the shouts, the whistles that passed on
com-mands, and in the background, insistent as a tocsin, the drumming and shouting. Knowles was
like a leashed hound wanting to go up the bank to the fight but Sharpe held him back. "They don't
need us. Our turn will come. Wait."

The British line was holding. The Frenchmen tried to rush the stream but fell as they reached
the water. The British pairs moved in short rushes, changing position, confusing their enemy,
waiting for the Voltigeurs to come in range and then letting off their shots. The green-jacketed
Riflemen of the Royal Americans looked for the enemy officers and Sergeants, and Sharpe could
hear the crack of the Rifles as they destroyed the enemy leaders. The sound was rising to its
first crescendo, the roar of the cannon, the melding crashes of shells, the drums and voices of
the column, and the sound of bugles mixing with the musketry. The mist was thickening with the
smoke of the French batteries that drifted westward towards the British line, but soon, Sharpe
knew, the mist would be burned off. He felt the faintest breeze and saw a great swirl of
whiteness shiver and move and heard Knowles draw breath with amazement before the mist closed
down. In the gap was a mass of men, tight-packed marching ranks tipped with steel, one of the
columns aiming for the stream. It was time to retreat and, sure enough, Sharpe heard the whistles
and bugles and saw the skirmishers to the left start to go backwards towards the Medellin. They
left bodies, red and green, behind them.

He blew his own whistle, waved an arm, and listened for the Sergeants to repeat the signal.
His men would be disappointed. They had not fired a shot but Sharpe suspected that they would
have their opportunities soon enough. The drumming and the chanting went on, the shot crashed
overhead, but as the company climbed the hill the mist cut them off from the battle. No-one was
shooting at them, no shells landed with spluttering fuses on their piece of the hillside, and
Sharpe continued to have the strange sensation of listening to a batde that had nothing to do
with him. The illusion vanished as the line climbed out of the mist onto a hillside bright with
the early sun. Sharpe checked the line, turned, and heard his men gasp and swear at the view they
suddenly encountered.

The crest of the Medellin was empty of soldiers. Only the French shells continued to tear up
the earth in great gouts of soil and flame. The skirmishers in front of the French attack
scrambled up the slope, ever nearer to the bursting shells, and turned to shoot at the columns
that crawled out of the mist like great, strange animals emerg-ing from the sea. The nearest
column was too hundred yards to the left and to Sharpe's raw troops it must have seemed
overwhelming. The Voltigeurs were joining its ranks, swelling it, the drummers beat it along with
their relentless, hypnotic beating and the deep shouts of `Vive L'Empereur' punctuated the
grinding advance. There were three columns climbing the slope; each, Sharpe guessed, had close to
two thousand men and over each there hung, glittering in the new sun, three gilded Eagles
reaching for the crest.

Sharpe turned his skirmish line to face the column and then waved the men down. There was
little they could do at this range. He decided not to rejoin the Battalion; the company would
suffer less by staying on the hillside and watching the attack than if they tried to run through
the barrage of shells, and as they knelt, watching the huge formation march up the slope, Sharpe
saw the men of the King's German Legion join his crude line. They would be privileged spectators
on the edge of the French attack. Ensign Denny came and knelt beside Sharpe, and his face
betrayed the worry and fear that the drumming, chanting mass engendered. Sharpe looked at him.
"What do you think?"

"Sir?"

"Frightening?" Denny nodded. Sharpe laughed. "Did you ever learn mathematics?"

"Yes, sir."

"So add up how many Frenchmen can actually use their muskets."

Denny stared at the column and Sharpe saw realisation dawn on his face. The French column was
a tried and tested battle winner, but against good troops it was a death trap. Only the front
rank and the two flank files could actually use their guns, and of the hundreds of men in the
nearest column only the sixty in the front rank and the men on the ends of the thirty or so other
ranks could actually fire at their enemies. The mass of men in the middle were there merely to
add weight, to look impres-sive, cheer, and fill up the gaps left by the dead.

The sound of the battle changed abruptly. The shelling stopped. The great marching squares
were close to the crest of the Medellin, and the French gunners were afraid of hitting their own
men. For a moment there was just the drumming, the sound of thousands of boots hitting the
hillside in unison, and suddenly a great cheer as the French infantry thought they had won. It
was easy to see why they thought victory was in their grasp. There was no enemy in front of them,
just the empty skyline, and the skirmish line had scrambled back over the crest to join their
Battalions. They had done their job. They had kept the Voltigeurs from the British line, and the
French cheer died away as the British orders rang out and suddenly the hilltop was lined two deep
with waiting men. It still looked ridiculous. Three great fists, enormous masses, aimed at a
tenuous two-deep line, but the look was deceptive; mathe-matics in this situation was
all.

The column nearest Sharpe was headed for the 66th and the 3rd. The two British Battalions were
outnumbered two to one, but every redcoat on the crest could fire his musket. Of the hundreds of
Frenchmen who climbed in the column only a few more than a hundred could actually fire back and
Sharpe had seen it happen too often to have any doubts about the outcome. He watched the order
given, saw the British line appear to take a quarter turn to the right as they brought their
muskets to their shoulders, and watched as the French column instinctively checked in the face of
so many guns. The drums rattled, the French officers shouted, a kind of low growl came from the
columns, swelled to a roar, to a cheer, and the French charged towards the summit.

And stopped. The slim steel blades of the British officers swept down and the relentless
volleys began. Nothing could stand in the way of that musket fire. From right to left along the
Battalions the platoon volleys flamed and flickered, a rolling fire that never stopped, the
machine-like regularity of trained troops pouring four shots a minute into the dense mass of
Frenchmen. The noise rose to the real crescendo of battle, the awesome sound of the ordered
volleys and mixed with it the curious ringing as the bullets struck French bayonets. Sharpe
looked to his left and saw the South Essex watching. They were too far away for their muskets to
be of any use, but he was glad that Simmerson's raw troops could see a demonstration of how
practised firepower won battles.

The drumming went on, the boys banging their instru-ments frenetically to force the column up
the slope and, incredibly, the French tried. The instinct of victory was too strong, too
ingrained, and as the front ranks were de-stroyed by the murderous fire, the men behind struggled
over the bodies to be thrown backwards in turn by the relentless bullets. They faced an
impossible task. The column was stuck, hunched against the storm, soaking up an incredible
punishment but refusing to give in, to accept defeat. Sharpe was amazed, as he had been at
Vimeiro, that troops could take such punishment but they did and he watched as the officers tried
to organise a new attack. The French, too late, tried to form into line, and he could see the
officers waving their swords to lead the rear ranks into the open flanks. Sharpe held his rifle
up.